


I tore off the golden branch

by catmanu



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Alternate Universe - No Girlfriends/No Wives, Angst and Feels, Character Death, Here to hurt my own feelings, M/M, Mythology References, Rakidrić - Freeform, Underworld, plot structure ripped off of Mulholland Drive, some smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:46:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28655931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catmanu/pseuds/catmanu
Summary: Luka dies in a tragic accident.Ivan would do anything, go anywhere, to have him back.And so would Luka.
Relationships: Luka Modrić/Ivan Rakitić
Comments: 9
Kudos: 11





	1. Here

**Author's Note:**

> Friends! I have been writing this since October 2019. When I say I'm a slow writer I'm not messing around.
> 
> So this fic was actually inspired by a folk song from the Balkans that I sang in school. (I've seen people say it's from different countries, so I'll just leave it at "Balkans."). The song is called Zaspo Janko, and the translated lyrics are something like:
> 
> Janko slept beneath the apple/poplar tree. _My darling, open your dark eyes, look at me._ Under the golden branches, _My darling, open your dark eyes, look at me._ He broke off a golden branch _My darling, open your dark eyes, look at me._. Something like that! The "golden branch" here is allegedly an invitation to the underworld. And so this fic popped into my head...
> 
> This is the first time I ever wanted to write a football AU. The idea is older than Mare Liberum by a few months! So I wasn't always sure what I was doing, but I hope you enjoy!

In movies, when the doctor comes out of the room and into the waiting area to tell everyone there the bad news, you can tell from their face what they’re going to say before they even open their mouths.

In real life, when the doctor comes out of the room and into the waiting area to tell everyone there the bad news, you can tell from his face what he’s going to say before he even opens his mouth.

Around him, his teammates erupt in noise and curses.It sounds so far away.Ivan’s feet take off without him.He runs toward the doctor.He feels like he’s moving in slow motion.He’s running through sand.

“Did you even try to save him?” comes from his mouth in a voice he doesn’t recognize.What does this mean?Of course they tried, of course they tried.It’s their job…

Dejan’s arm is wrapping around his waist, stopping him. Of course it’s him.Dejan is all fire.He’s three people in one.But he’s also calming, in his way.There are things he understands.

“Hold it together, brate.For him…”

As far as this doctor knows, they’re all just Luka’s teammates.Friends.Well, as far as everyone in the room knows, he and Luka are just that—teammates and friends.So he seems almost a bit confused by Ivan’s reaction.

“Some people who suffer trauma to the C1 and C2 vertebrae survive—”

_(“What the fuck is a C1 vertebrae?C2?What do they do?”_

_“How the fuck don’t you know?”_

_“If you don’t calm down—”)_

Ivan can’t tell if his friends really are back there being themselves or if he’s just imagining it all.He doesn’t want this to be real.It can’t be real.

“Unfortunately, your friend wasn’t able to pull through—”

Ivan crumbles.Without Dejan’s arm he probably would have fallen, smashed up his neck, gone out the same way Luka just—His legs are weak. All that muscle—useless now.He’ll never stand up again.

As he starts to cry the room goes silent.

It can’t be real. It’s worse than any nightmare he’s ever had and it’s come true.

*

_You’re afraid your whole life to tell people you love men.And with Luka—you’re still afraid.But when you’re with him, everything is sunlight and warmth.Everything feels like being just the right kind of drunk.When you’re with him you’re not afraid to love._

_And this is how your secret gets revealed?This way?In the most fucked-up way?_

*

Ivan zones out through the church service and the eulogies and hugs Luka’s sisters tightly in a total fog. At the cemetery, he panics looking at the coffin and the hole and the coffin and the hole in the fucking ground. There are black spots at the edges of his vision.He starts to wobble.Suba and Marcelo have to hold him up—it’s fucked, part of him is laughing bitterly, that a _Real Madrid_ player is supporting him right now, and that Luka’s childhood friend is in better shape than he is—and he can’t stop looking at the coffin and thinking about how he wants to jump on top of it, hug it, never let go of it, be buried right along with it—

“Okay, we need to find you a place to sit down,” Suba is saying. “Away from all this.”

“No, I have to be—”

“How could I have forgotten you’re the most stubborn fucker on the planet?” Suba sighs. “Well, you and Luka. It all makes sense now. You need to sit and you need to breathe.” He points at a nearby bench. “This is still Luka’s time. Don’t ruin it by passing out like a fucking drama queen, huh?”He gives Ivan a weak smile and a shoulder squeeze. “C’mon. Go sit.”

But it doesn’t help. Taking deep breaths doesn’t help. Drinking water doesn’t help. And Sergio fucking Ramos winds up driving him back to the hotel.

“I feel like I lost my brother,” is what Sergio fucking Ramos says to break the silence. He sounds like he’s holding back tears.

“So why aren’t you still back at the...” He doesn’t want to say _cemetery_. He doesn’t want Luka to be in a cemetery.

“Someone had to do it.” Sergio stops at a red light and takes the moment to look at Ivan. His eyes are glistening, and Ivan scratches his nose roughly to keep from crying in front of Sergio fucking Ramos. “And anyway...He would have wanted someone to take care of you.”

Ivan asks, but only because the light turns green just then and he doesn’t have to look at Sergio anymore. “Did you know? You knew, right? That Luka was my...” He swallows. “My—“

“I did. For a while now. It wasn’t like...public knowledge in our dressing room, but he did tell me. And Marcelo, too. He trusts us.”

Sergio doesn’t correct the present tense, and Ivan’s throat aches.

“Thanks for not...saying anything,” he whispers.

“Why would I? Wasn’t my business, and Luka’s too important to me.” He pulls into the parking lot of the hotel and pats Ivan firmly on the shoulder. “Hang in there, brother, okay? Take care of yourself. You know he’d want that.”

“Yeah,” Ivan said, the words bruising his sore throat.

“I’m going to drive back to the...” He can’t say _cemetery_ either, Ivan notices.

“Okay. Thanks for the ride. I’ll see you soon.”

*

The last time Ivan was at home, Luka was there with him.They were in such a rush to leave that last morning, extra distracted by each other, that they didn’t have time to make the bed.

Now all he wants to do is fall into bed but it’s unmade, the sheets twisted and crumpled where their bodies had been tangled up.He knows he can’t get back into this bed.It’s sacred now.

He’s got guest rooms, but he doesn’t want to _leave_ the bed, either.He grabs an extra blanket and curls up on the floor. 

He sleeps, he wakes up.

He sleeps, he wakes up.

He gets up to drag his feet to the bathroom and drink a little water. The light in there is too bright but he feels like he can barely see anything, anyway.Everything looks like a dark shadow.There’s no more color.

He stumbles back to the blanket on the floor.He sleeps, he wakes up.He sleeps, he wakes up.

He sleeps. He wakes up. Messages and calls are coming in.Look at how many people love him.So many—but they don’t count anymore. 

It’s rain that really wakes him up.

It must be day, because there’s light coming in, but it could be morning or afternoon, it doesn’t matter, nothing matters, he can’t even check the time easily because he let his phone die sometime yesterday. His charger is somewhere across the room and he can’t imagine having the energy to do something extra like going to _get_ it.

Then rain is pelting the window, smacking against it like hail, streaming down the glass like he’s sitting in his car as it goes through the car wash.He expects thunder and lightning but none comes, just rain, rain, rain coming down so hard that for a second he imagines it breaking the glass and sweeping him away.

He sits up.

God, his back _hurts_ , it’s stiff and sore and—how many days has he been sleeping like this, lying like this, curled up on the floor by his bed with some of his extra blankets and pillows—for how long will he—he can’t touch his bed, can’t go near it—

He rubs his face and blinks and can’t remember the last time he showered, or shaved, or ate or drank anything that wasn’t a glass of water in the bathroom.He must look as awful as he feels, and it’s time to find out.

He looks bad.Really fucking bad.And when he goes to charge his phone and turn it back on again he sees it’s been a week.He’s been doing this for a week.

 _Luka wouldn’t want this,_ he realizes. _Luka never gave up..He’d be pissed at me if he knew I was doing this._

And Ivan finds it in himself to get up and shower and put on some clothes that are a little looser than before.He goes downstairs and grabs himself some granola and almond milk.Makes coffee.Opens the shades and looks at the rain.

It feels good and he feels stronger by the second.He decides to go out for a run by the beach. 

There’s a piece of paper sticking out from under his front door. _Huh?_ He picks it up.It’s an advertisement for poplar tea. _What the fuck is that?_ And who passes out paper ads for _tea,_ anyway?

He crumples it into a ball and tosses into the recycling on the way to get his shoes.

The next morning he wakes up and works out.He listens to some of the cheesy love songs Luka loved so much.Growing up in Switzerland, Ivan hadn’t heard them as often as Luka had, but by now he knows them all by heart.

The playlist goes on and on, songs about heartbreak and love and Croatia and love for Croatia and ending with _Dalmatinac._ And Ivan’s not a Zadar kid, not even close, but singing along to it he feels Luka in his heart.He feels Luka holding him, pushing him through his workout in his tiny shorts.

He feels like he can go out to the real world.He needs some food, and the supermarket’s close enough.He heads into the garage and stops, confused.There’s a paper tucked under one of his wipers.It’s that same ad for poplar tea that he’d seen yesterday.

But his car has been in here for weeks and the door’s been locked.How did it get under his wiper?There isn’t any explanation.It makes no sense.And he really doesn’t want to think about anything strange. So he just crumples this one up too and gets into his car.

When he gets home there’s two more of the same ads lying outside his door.

 _Aggressive advertising, huh,_ he thinks, and gets ready to make lunch.

That evening he responds to some of his friends, finally.He’s left them hanging long enough.And that night, he gets into his own bed, pulling the blanket around him tight.He’s ready.

He falls asleep.He dreams.

*

_There is a crowd of grey people, and out of the crowd comes Luka, but there is something strange about him, like it isn’t actually him, but it is him, but it isn’t him, but it’s him._

_“I need a haircut,” he says to Ivan._

_“What, no you don’t,” Ivan says.“Honestly I’ve always been afraid to tell you, cause maybe it isn’t my business, but I like it better long like this.”_

_“I need a haircut,” Luka says again.His eyes are darting around like he’s feeling shy at an awards ceremony—looking everywhere but Ivan’s eyes.Ivan’s stomach feels unsettled.Luka doesn’t have to feel this way with him._

_“But you really don’t.You just have to comb it and like—fix the part a little.I’ll do it if you want.”He reaches out to touch Luka’s hair and when it does, it’s greasy and doesn’t feel quite right but he’s touching Luka’s hair again and his fingers buzz with excitement. He feels the tingles running up his wrist._

_“In three weeks.”_

_“In three weeks,” Ivan repeats._

_“In three weeks. Let’s go.”_

_He takes Ivan’s hand and pulls him into a little building that’s appeared next to them.Ivan hadn’t noticed it before but maybe it’s always been there.Inside the place feels bad, wrong.It’s silent and the floors are old and wooden and there are too many staircases.Luka chooses a staircase and leads them up.The stairs have no resistance under Ivan’s feet, like they might disintegrate at any time.Ivan does not want to be in here, but he has Luka by his side._

_“I trust you,” Ivan says to Luka._

_“I’m dead,” Luka states, even though his hand is surprisingly warm.“I love you.”_

_He suddenly opens a door that’s there, right there, built into the wall, and they’re in Luka’s bedroom.But it’s not Luka’s bedroom at all. And yet, it’s Luka’s bedroom._

_“Do you still want me?” Luka asks.His voice is too high._

_“Do I still want you?Luka…you’re all I want.”_

_“You still want me,” Luka says, and suddenly Ivan’s clothes are off from the waist down and Luka is pushing him down onto the soft mattress the way he always does when he gets aggressive—Ivan loves it, loves when he gets aggressive, loves having him back—Luka taking him into his mouth hungrily, more urgently than he’s ever done—and Ivan is talking, saying filthy things as Luka’s mouth works his length, but they don’t seem to make sense.And then the meaning of them leaves his mind, anyway._

_“Hey, Luka—Luka—“ he breathes.“I’m close—can I come on your face?”_

_Luka’s nails dig into his hips, too sharp, and he doesn’t answer._

_“Hey, listen to me,” Ivan says.“Can I c—”He pulls Luka’s hair to get his attention, and it comes out in his hand.It comes out in his hand?Ivan sits up just as Luka raises his head and—it takes him a second to understand what he’s seeing.Luka’s skin is falling off, peeling off his cheekbones and that nose, and one of his eyes is just a gaping hole—there’s nothing there—and his hair is all patchy, coming out, and his skin is—his skin is—it’s falling off in flakes, it’s—_

Ivan wakes up screaming into the silence of his bedroom and as soon as he realizes he’s awake he shuts his mouth in case that Luka is still there and tries to crawl into it. His stomach lurches and twists.He wants to throw up.He pulls the blanket up over his head like a kid.

He stays under the blanket shaking, sweating, until it is too hard to breathe and he dares to stick his nose out into the cool air of his bedroom. 

It’s this bed, it’s cursed, he can’t sleep in it.He takes the risk and rolls out of the relative safety of his blanket and back onto the tangle of extra blankets on the floor.

He falls asleep again, a safe, dreamless sleep.

In the morning, as he’s stripping down to take a shower, he notices in the mirror—there are little dents in his hips where Luka’s nails had dug into him in the dream, and he makes some nail-marks of his own next to them, hoping—praying—and the marks left in his sleep match his own.

 _Thank you, God,_ he thinks through the noise in his mind, _thank you, thank you—_ maybe he should start going to church again— _thank you so much, thank you_.And he stays there, leaning on the sink instead of turning the shower on, breathing, breathing as he hears more rain blowing in again, breathing until something hits his window with a wet, sticky sound and stays there—an ad for poplar tea.

_Whatever the fuck that is._

_It was just a dream,_ he thinks as he turns the water to the hottest it can go, _it was just a dream,_ and by the time his shower is done he thinks he believes it.

*

All week he tries to keep living. He keeps sleeping on the floor under his extra blankets. The nightmare doesn't come back, but sometimes he catches his skin tingling like there's someone right behind him. There's no one ever there, but he'll feel it. Just for a moment, something's there.

The ads for poplar tea keep coming. They keep showing up under his wipers in the closed-off garage. There are piles of them outside his door, stuck in the bushes. Every day they're there, each day more than the last.

He looks up poplar tea online and finds nothing. Maybe it's a desparate local startup, but why are they bothering him so much with their ads? But in a way he doesn't mind. The weirdness of it all is numbing him just a bit. He catches himself glancing at his bed, wondering if he should try again. He catches himself smiling to his cheesy Croatian playlist more and more.

It's been three weeks without Luka, and Ivan decides to go find this poplar tea in the store. _Why the hell not, right?_

*

It’s pouring outside. His hoodie is soaked, and his hair is clinging to his forehead. The supermarket feels nice and warm. He goes to grab a basket and starts walking through the aisles to grab what he needs to make a smoothie for breakfast tomorrow. And maybe he’ll make salmorejo—his favorite dish since he lived in Sevilla. It could go well with this poplar tea thing, whatever it was.

Two kids recognize him at the end of the tea isle, and he stops for a very wet-haired selfie. This makes him smile, and for a moment he forgets everything.

The cashier rings up his purchases quickly but frowns as nothing happens when she swipes the box of poplar tea over the scanner.

“Huh,” she says. “This doesn’t have a barcode...Are you sure you got it here?”

“Yes, it was on a shelf in the tea aisle,” Ivan says. Apparently without Luka nothing will ever go right ever again.

“Well, let me look it up in our system...” Ivan is nervous as he waits. “Well,” she says again.“This is strange…but we definitely don’t sell this at our store.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Someone must have gotten it somewhere else and dropped it or something.” She shrugs. “If you want to keep it you can just...take it.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do. Thanks.”

*

At home, he puts his groceries away and gets some water boiling. He chooses his old FC Basel mug. Better to use something from before he ever knew Luka...

When the tea’s ready he takes the mug over to the couch. It’s almost too hot to hold. He’ll wait a little to drink it.

He sinks down into the familiar spot, the spot he always sat in when Luka was visiting, and he leans back and Luka’s kicking him with his rough bare feet and laughing.

Luka is laughing Luka is laughing and no, no, NO!

Ivan jumps off the couch because Luka is laughing. The tea splashes out of the mug. It’s so loud in his head he could swear Luka is hiding in here somewhere, it’s all a joke, it’s all a fucked-up prank that he doesn’t deserve. He checks in the closets, behind some of the furniture. “Luka?” he calls, and his voice wobbles and breaks and he still hears Luka laughing and even though the boiling poplar leaf tea has splashed all over his hands and arms, he is covered in goosebumps.

He’ll go to the bedroom, then. 

He sits down at the side of the bed—his side—the bed that he won’t sleep in anymore—and _the room smells like sweat and sex when he walks back in with their morning coffee and Luka is sprawled out in his underwear, hard and breathing hard, pretending to be asleep even though Ivan knows him better than that._

_Open those eyes open those big beautiful eyes—_

_He takes Luka by the chin, shakes him.Open your eyes, moje sunce._

_And leans over and kisses Luka till can’t help but giggle._

_Moje sunce?That’s what I call you, Ivan.Make up your own name._

Finally the tea is cool enough to take a sip. It’s bitter at first but with a strange, sweet, flowery aftertaste. He keeps going, taking big gulps of it. His throat is tingling.

“Ivaaaaaan,” Luka sings from somewhere. His head, maybe. Or maybe not. The tea is making him feel heavy and sleepy.The memories of their last time in here are growing quieter in his head. 

_I love you, Ivan, I love you.You’re perfect, you know?I’m so lucky to have you as my co-captain and my…and my…I’m so lucky to have you._

“I love you too, baby,” Ivan mumbles to the Luka in his head.

He sets the mug down next to his bed and curls up under the blanket. It feels nice to sleep in his bed. It feels really nice...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Luka's accident is meant to be a little ambiguous, but we can assume it happened during a match.


	2. Nowhere

He wakes up freezing. His ears are ringing like he’s just been to a concert but all he’s done is wake up from a nap. There’s a weird sound underneath the ringing—it sounds like water. It’s getting louder the more he focuses.

He lifts his head up and everything at the sides of his vision is blurred. He can only see clearly directly in front of him. Otherwise…It’s blurry and darkening and he hears water. Waves.

The stress, the pain, the late nights crying…It’s all made him come down with something, he thinks. A weird virus, or maybe even the flu.He remembers leaving a little bit of the tea in his mug. If he sleeps more maybe he can sleep it all off. The mug is on the table.

He doesn’t see the mug, or maybe he does see it and it’s blurred, but what he does see clearly is a beautiful golden branch sitting right there on the table in front of him. It’s shining, it’s glowing. 

Everything around him is growing darker and darker but maybe that’s because the golden branch is so bright.

_Ivan…_

“Luka?” His tongue is heavy. His lips are heavy.

_Ivan…_

“Luka, I don’t get it. Are you still alive?”

_Ivan…the golden branch…_

“What is it? L-Luka, where a-are y-y—” He can barely talk, and his arm moves slower than it ever has as he reaches for the golden branch.

_Ivan…the golden branch…_

He hears the waves. They’re so loud it’s like being in Zadar. _They’re on the boat in Zadar and they have hilariously purple lips from wine and he’s making fun of Luka’s tan lines and Luka says at least I’m not as pale as this and pulls Ivan’s bathing suit down and smacks his ass and says I can’t believe I just did that and Ivan says I wish you would more often and the waves are loud almost as loud as in Zadar where they kissed and laughed enough on the boat to drown the waves out._

_Ivan…_

Ivan wants to end this whole moment so he can go back to sleep. He jerks his slow-moving arm through the air and snatches the golden branch. It’s cold. Something that bright and shining should not be cold, but it’s cold. It’s icy. His feet are wet. His feet are wet.


	3. There

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I listened to [this version of the Hungarian folk song Szerelem](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLdh73b1l4Y&ab_channel=Peia-Topic) ("Love") a lot while writing this chapter; you can put it on for background music if you want!

_His feet are wet_

_Grey water is pooling around his toes and the mud underneath his feet is cool and smooth, shifting as the waves go in and out and in and out_

_Thick mist wraps around his ankles. It’s Zadar. It’s Zadar on a bad day but how did he get there?_

_He lifts his head._

_The mist is thick and it’s everywhere—so thick he can’t see much ahead of him—but there’s an old bearded man in a boat and his paddle cuts through the water, slices through the mist, till he comes to a stop on the shore in front of him._

_It’s not Zadar._

_“Are you Ivan?” he asks. His voice is soft and deep—deeper than Luka’s._

_“Yeah, I am.”_

_“Rakitić?”_

_“Uh…yes. Do you...do you want me to -sign something for you?”_

_“Sign something for you?”He laughs as though Ivan is stupid. “You have something to give me.”_

_This makes no sense. Ivan ignores it._

_“Uh, could you tell me where I am first, maybe?”_

_The man laughs harder and he has no teeth in his mouth_.

_“Where you are is where you’ll remain, Ivan.”_

_“Dude...come on! That’s not an answer.”_

_His beard is so long that it trails in the grey water. He holds out his hand. His palm is wrinkled. His nails are too yellow and he smells like—rotting. Death._

_IVAN!!!_

_Luka’s scream bounces off the water, over the pull of the waves and the rush of mud between his toes._

_“You have something to give me.” His boat creaks behind him, and something about this scene is familiar to Ivan now, but he can’t figure out why. He hasn’t been to this place before. It’s not a memory from his childhood. It’s almost like…something from a movie, or a story, but how is that possible?_

_“I’ll give you anything—I’ll do anything—if you just please—“_

_IVAN!!!_

_“—please just tell me where we are? Where is Luka, I can hear him, where is he?”_

_“It’s not uncommon for people to be so lost when they’re standing on the shore,” the old man says. “This is the river_ _Styx. Doesn’t look like it’s part of your belief system—” Ivan feels his eyes looking at the cross on his arm. “But you don’t need to believe to wind up here.”_

_For some reason he remembers his teacher saying it—maybe when he was 10, 11, in their Greek mythology lesson, Der Fluss Styx bildet die Grenze zwischen der Welt der Lebenden und dem Reich der Toten Hades, it’s funny what sticks in his head and in which language especially now that he’s been told that he’s standing on the border of life and the underworld._

_“Am I dead? But I didn’t—I’m young and healthy and all I did was fall asleep. Am I—you have to tell me.”_

_His hand is still out. He’s the ferryman, Ivan remembers. He has a name. Ivan will think of it later. He looks into the ferryman’s hooded eyes._

_“You have to tell me.”_

_The ferryman doesn’t change his expression. “You have something to give me. If you can’t pay for the passage, you will be stranded here.”_

_His eyes are so grey and empty and when they stare at Ivan they make him shiver. “You do not want to be stranded here.”_

_IVAN!!! Ivan, please..._

_It all makes sense to him now—what else could it be? Luka is somehow still alive. It wasn’t his time to go. And now he’s here to bring him back._

_And he stares hot into the ferryman’s cold eyes. “I learned in school that I’m supposed to give you a coin, right? I don’t have anything like that on me. I don’t even have my phone. But I do have...”_

_He holds out the golden branch and the corners of the ferryman’s wrinkly mouth turn up._

_“A golden branch.”He slips it into a pocket in his water-stained grey robes and holds out his hand to help Ivan board the boat. “Well, well. A golden branch. You were invited here, Ivan Rakitić.”_

_“That’s what that was?” Ivan sits down on a narrow bench and tries to keep his feet out of the dirty water pooled down at the bottom of the boat. “That was an invitation?”_

_“Mmmm, yes.” The boat begins to turn around, away from the shore that Ivan is supposed to never be stuck on. But all this means is that he’s headed right toward the underworld. “Someone must want you very badly, to invite you like that. I haven’t seen a golden branch in centuries.”_

_“In centuries...”_

_Ivan!!! Ivan...Ivan..._

_-van van van van-_

_echoes off the water and then the ferryman takes them into a cloud of mist so thick Ivan can hardly hear the splash of the paddle._

_“He does. You can hear him yelling for me right now. Do you want to...” Ivan has no idea how long this trip will take. Might as well make it fun. “Do you want to know more about him?”_

_“No.” The ferryman holds up a lamp to guide them through the fog. “In the land of the dead memories serve no purpose other than to cause you pain. It’s best to forget everything.”_

_It’s shit advice.Ivan has no interest in forgetting anything—not the way he’d work his thumbs deep into Luka’s quads to work out the knots that physio just never could, not every time Luka gave in and let Ivan wash his hair for him—they somehow always got the whole bathroom soaked, but neither of them cared—not each time when Ivan lifted Luka up so he could reach a high shelf—I don’t need your help, Ivan!—and couldn’t help but sneak kisses behind his ears in the process—not any of these things, not anything since the first day they met._

_He can keep all these memories.When he finally steps back out into the light, carrying Luka in his arms so nothing can ever hurt him again…it’s this journey that he plans to forget._

_The boat bumps against something.It’s still too foggy to see ahead of him, but Ivan smells—burning?Rotting?Mold?Death._

_Despite the cross tattooed on his arm, which should have reminded him to do this a while ago, it only occurs to him now to wonder if Hell is real._

_Is that where he is?_

_It can’t be.Luka would never—_

_“Step out of the boat,” the ferryman says, his deep voice deeper, slower.“You’re on the other side of the Styx now.This is where I leave you.”_

_IVAN!!!Luka’s voice is cracking.He’s emotional.“Ivan, come here.You’re so close.”_

_“Where are you, Luka?” Ivan calls, his legs wobbling as he steps out of the boat. The shore is rocky and he hops over everything sharp until his feet meet smooth, cool grass. There’s grass down here? This is all so fucking weird._

_“Ivan...Ivan!” Luka’s voice sounds more normal now. Relieved, maybe. “Ivan, please, just keep going. Keep going...”_

_Ivan runs toward the sound, barely noticing anything around him. “Luka...Luka!!!”_

_And there he is._

_He’s in his full kit, still stained from the game, and he’s sitting on a rock like a shepherd boy or something, like your life resets and goes right back to the beginning when you die._

_He’s not right—his wide brown eyes reddened, his hair a mess, and his neck—Ivan’s breath hitches—is at a funny, crooked angle—his heart twists—well, someone can fix it once they’re back. They have the money—even if this is the end of both their careers—they’ll have all the money and all the time in the—_

_“Luk—“ his voice breaks on the A, he breaks, he sobs, he flings himself onto the moss at Luka’s feet, his chest heaves in the clammy air, he buries his head in Luka’s lap and he’s so cold, that delicate strong body, it’s so familiar but so—not—he’s so cold, he’s so cold, he’s dead._

_“Well of course I’m cold.” Ivan hadn’t realized he was saying this out loud. “Ever felt a weeks-old corpse? I don’t think they’re warm...” He laughs but—the laugh is—Oh, Luka!_

_“You’ve been all alone down here for weeks...” Ivan says._

_“Yeah...I was hoping to make the best of it and maybe see some people I haven’t seen in a while...” Ivan chokes on a laugh. Typical Luka, to try to find the practical side of everything. “I haven’t yet but they must be around here somewhere. The underworld is pretty crowded.”_

_“I have to ask...” Ivan says. “Did it...hurt? They said you wouldn’t have felt any pain, but I always feel like that kind of thing is a lie.”_

_“Didn’t hurt, whatever it was,” Luka says. “The last thing I remember is...” He scrunches up his forehead and Ivan reaches to brush some hair off of it. The soft, beautiful hair is limp and cold. No one’s lovingly shampooed it in so long..._

_“80 minutes in, someone’s coming at me. One of their defenders—I can’t remember who.That’s the last face I saw. Did we win?” Ivan is reaching up to touch Luka’s face. He can’t believe he’s touching it again, that nose, the heart shape of his lips, his jaw—as he runs his fingers down Luka’s neck he feels Luka swallow and his heart smashes against his ribs—“Did they—give you the captain’s armband? I couldn’t myself so—did they take it off me and give it to you?”_

_“Yes.” He remembers it, warm and sweaty from Luka’s body, almost not making it onto his arm, because his hands were shaking so much.Borna had to help him get it on.“They did. And we won.”_

_Luka grabs Ivan’s face with his cold hands—they’re so cold—and his mouth is so cold and his tongue feels like an icicle when it slides into Ivan’s mouth and this isn’t the kiss of two people who’ve missed each other, it’s the kiss of two people who were hungry, starving for each other—Ivan tangles his hands in Luka’s knotted hair where they belong—God—it’s been too long since—_

_“How is it that you’re wearing one of my favorite shirts?”Ivan looks down. It’s one of his soft blue tshirts—this particular shade of blue reminds him of the ocean, of the Mediterranean that he can see from his home in Barcelona, of the Adriatic, of Zadar, of waking up too early on the boat in Zadar, naked and too hungover for two guys their age. “I guess I timed my invitation really well. Now you’ll be in that shirt forever.”_

_How easily Luka adapts to everything! He has no idea that Ivan has come to take him back._

_“Luka. I want to sit here with you forever. I want to look at you forever. I never want to be so far aw—I need to see you.”_

_Luka waits patiently for Ivan to get the words out. He’s better with Ivan’s emotions than Ivan himself is. On either side of the Styx, apparently._

_“But I’m so tired.”_

_“I guess that’s normal,” Luka says. He smooths Ivan’s hair with his rough fingers. “I’ve slept a lot since I got here.”_

_He holds Ivan’s hand and kisses it and it’s funny—Luka suddenly feels less cold. Is he used to it already? Maybe his body heat is keeping Luka warm. Ivan likes this thought.It’s one step closer to rescuing him._

_“Wanna see where I’ve been sleeping? It will fit two for sure.”_

_They stand up and Ivan thinks about how good the moss feels under his bare feet after all that water in the boat. It’s weird that there’s a huge meadow down here. But he’ll sleep anywhere if Luka is there, and then once he’s well-rested they’ll go back and begin their lives again._

_He turns around and lets Luka climb onto his back and he’s really not cold at all now, and Luka is saying “there’s always room for your legs, you can always wrap them around me” and Ivan realizes—he’s happy down here in the underworld._

_*_

_He wakes up to a familiar hand reaching around from behind him and slipping under his shorts, and it’s so familiar that he forgets where he is for a second, and then he remembers that it’s dead Luka who’s doing this, dead Luka who’s touching him—dead Luka whose cold hand is as firm as living Luka’s, whose scraggly hair falls forward and tickles Ivan’s neck the same way living Luka’s did._

_Ivan doesn’t worry that people may be watching. Or spirits. Or whoever they are down here. It’s been so long—so long— he hasn’t touched himself in weeks—_

_Luka slings a slender leg over Ivan’s and presses closer against him and it turns out the dead can get turned on just as though they were alive—how—why—_

_The hand pushes his waistband down roughly so he doesn’t get his shorts dirty—thoughtful—and the feeling of his bare skin meeting the the cool, damp air makes him moan aloud into the underworld—Luka laughs low, soft— The hand knows just what to do, how hard to move, how long to wait to milk every last drop from him—his hands shred the grass—he calls out the name of the one who’s been calling his name for weeks—_

_Two hands take his shoulders and help turn him around and he cuddles against Luka desperately, kissing his head, mumbling things he won’t remember later._

_When he returns the favor—trying to slowly run his hand down Luka’s chest and under his grass-stained, dirt-stained shorts—and unable to be slow—it’s strange to him, and then he forgets, how when Luka loses his control and rolls his hips forward against Ivan’s hand and digs his teeth into Ivan’s arm there isn’t that sting of pain like there used to be._

_*_

_His eyes are closed, listening to the underworld. There are weird sounds down here. Sighs and whispers and sometimes something that sounds like wind.Luka mumbling next to him. And something else, now, strange voices that he almost recognizes cutting in and out._

Ivan—IVAN!!! Do you hear me, Ivan? Do you hear me? Ivan, please--Ivan--

Call an

_He honestly can’t quite recognize the voice.Someone he plays on a team with.Someone from Barça, obviously. Is he dreaming?_

ambulance!! Now--

Now, fucking now--

_He puts his hands over his ears but it’s coming from somewhere else, far away, he can’t tell where._

Now...Ivan...

_He shivers and holds Luka closer._

_*_

_“I last saw you in a suit.” This has been bothering him. “How come you’re still in your kit?”_

_Luka shrugs. “From what I’ve noticed it looks like you show up here in whatever you were wearing when you died.”_

_Ivan shivers and Luka notices. “What?”_

_“I wish you hadn’t said that.”_

_Sometimes back on earth Luka, in all his practicality, got impatient with Ivan. Down here it’s no different. “Well, I’m dead, Ivan. It happened. What do you want me to say? ‘Passed away?’ ‘Departed?’”_

_Ivan gives in. “You just always looked so handsome in suits. That’s all.”_

_“Well, this is more authentic.”_

_“That’s true.”_

_“And my kit’s easier to take off,” Luka says, smiling and showing teeth._

_Ivan nuzzles his soft, cold cheek and messy hair. “You’re the horniest dead person I’ve ever heard of.”_

_“Well, what else is there to do down here? Give a press conference? Train for a match? Anyway back up there you liked me when I was like this, hmmm?”_

_Ivan grins at him and wrestles him flat onto his stomach and tugs the waistband of his shorts down till his cute butt is exposed, pale in the grey light. “You’re right. I did.”_

_And he pauses before he does anything else. “I love you, Luka, I love you.You’re perfect, you know?”_

*

_Ivan runs through one of the endless open misty fields trying to catch Luka. It’s fun. They should get the fuck out of this place sometime soon, though._

_Sounds float in and out of his mind. Crying, someone crying. People crying. Someone saying his name over and over again and it’s not Luka._

*

_Being down here is too weird.All morning…if you can even call it that...Ivan’s been feeling the strangest thing.Like he’s being bumped against something hard and solid over and over again, but obviously this isn’t actually happening to him, so what the fuck is going on?He mentions it to Luka, who nods a little sadly and chews at his lip.Ivan guesses he feels bad that he doesn’t know, either._

_So Ivan decides this is it.It’s time to go back home._

_“Let’s go for a walk, baby,” he says, standing up and holding his hands out to pull Luka up with him.Luka is a lot less tough down here.He lets Ivan do things he never would have back up in the real world._

_I need to get the fuck out of here, he thinks.He’s hearing those voices in his head again—mumbling and people crying, though he can’t tell what they’re saying.This must be what happens when you’re alive in the underworld.You become haunted._

_“Where are we going?”_

_“Oh, you’ll see.”_

_As they walk hand in hand—there’s no one here to judge or gossip, which Ivan guesses is an unexpected perk of the land of the dead—he wonders if he should have a good look around, really take in what everything looks like. How many people have gone down to the Ancient Greek underworld as though it were a real place and lived to tell the tale?_

_But why would he want to remember any of this—the grey, the gloom, the damp, the sad unspeaking souls drifting around with no purpose, the reason that he wound up here in the first place?_

_But at the same time—what better proof to bring back home that the power of true love was more powerful than anyone could ever have imagined?_

_It’s not an easy journey. Since Luka’s in his full kit, his feet are protected. Ivan was alright at first, but the ground is starting to get rockier and wet and it’s uncomfortable and slippery. They must be getting close to the Styx._

_“Where are we going?”Luka asks._

_“I said, you’ll see, baby.”_

_“Are you taking me on a date?” Luka grins.Ivan imagines how beautiful that glowing smile will look in the sunshine._

_“I think we’re almost there,” Ivan says.“I hear it.”_

_“Hear what?”_

_“The Styx.Listen.”_

_The Styx doesn’t make too much noise, but he can hear its little ripples and gurgles as it moves over the rocky shore, and it’s the most beautiful sound he thinks he’s ever heard._

_“Oh!Should we throw some rocks in and make a wish?”Luka picks up a pebble from the shore and throws it into the mist.Ivan hears a splash, but the Styx is so thick with fog that he can’t see where it landed.“I wish…we could be together forever.”He elbows Ivan in the ribs and winks._

_Ivan feels it again—his body thudding against something.So he yells into the fog.“Hello?Can you hear me?”_

_His echo comes back at him._

_“Hello?HEY!!!! We’re ready over here.I have Luka.Hello?”_

_“Ivan…”Luka’s face looks impossibly pale.“Ivan, what are you doing?”_

_“Getting the fucking ferry guy. It’s time to go.”_

_Luka sighs and squeezes his hand tight. “I guess everyone must have this moment down here at some point.You can’t go back.”_

_“That’s what you think, but you’re wrong, Luka. For once in your life.” He laughs but the laugh gets stuck in his chest. It feels cold. He feels cold._

_Luka’s pale face has somehow grown paler. His brown eyes are so wide. “I thought you knew. I really thought you knew. Oh, my god. Fuck.”_

_“Knew what?” And when Luka’s mouth just hangs open, the heart-shape split in two, Ivan can’t help himself and he shakes Luka by the shoulders. Gently, but he does. “Knew fucking what, Luka?”_

_“You’re—you’re dead, Ivan. You—when you drank the—I’m sorry, Ivan. I think they are burying you today. That’s what you’re. When you were feeling weird things before. That’s what—”_

_If Ivan had eaten anything in the past few days he would have thrown it back up. His ears are ringing. He’s seeing white spots.“No. No. I’m here to bring you back. I’m healthy and alive and you brought me here to bring you back.”_

_“No, Ivan. That’s not possible. I mean, I did bring you here.”Ivan’s legs shake. They’re shaking and shaking and Luka holds him. Steadies him with hands that are shaking too. “I sent you the signs to buy the—It was toxic, Ivan, what you drank. It killed you. But you didn’t feel any pain. And I left you your invitation so you would—“_

_“Why?” Ivan says, and then his voice breaks. “WHY?”_

_Why? Why? Why? His voice bounces across the river and into the mist._

_“Because I couldn’t face an eternity without you,” Luka says simply._

_And that’s what you were thinking this whole time, too, he tells himself. You and Luka are always on the same page._

_“You couldn’t have taken your fucking parents?”_

_“They’re older. They’ll be here soon enough.And...so will everyone you love.”_

_Luka wraps his arms around Ivan’s waist. “You were so warm when you first got here,” he says. “But now you feel just like me.” His hand strokes Ivan’s cheek and Ivan thinks he wants to take it and shove Luka’s wiry little body into the fucking river._

_“I guess you’ll always feel just like me now.”_

_Ivan thinks of his family. His friends. His club. Barcelona. What kind of boyfriend does this? Takes him away from his whole life when he was in his prime, fit and playing well with so many years left? This isn’t what he wanted. No._

_His family. His friends. His club. Barcelona. They’ll all think he killed himself because he couldn’t handle life without Luka. When nothing could be further from the truth. Fighting to bring Luka back—that’s what did it._

_He wraps his arms around Luka and cries into his tangled hair. He cries for a long time till he’s too weak to stand. Luka helps him sit on a wet, cold rock by the useless river._

_“I love you, Ivan,” he whispers._

_“I love you too,” Ivan whispers back. He doesn’t know what else to say. And It’s still true, after all. It’s still true._

_*_

_Lately Ivan keeps having the same memory.It’s of him and Luka soon after he’d first been called up to the national team.They’d fumbled around a few times in the dark, underneath their shorts with their shirts rolled up but they weren’t a thing, not yet, but Ivan nervously thinks he might want them to be._

_The memory is simple.They’re taking a break, mandated by Bilić, because it’s so hot, and the bugs are buzzing everywhere, and Luka is sitting on one of the benches with Ivan sitting on the ground next to him.He takes a sip of blue Gatorade and swishes it around his mouth and then spits it out onto the concrete because maybe it’ll impress Luka for some reason._

_Luka just snorts at him—he’s chewing on his lip, he’s thinking about what they’ve been practicing—and Ivan watches him scratch at a bug bite under his knee and thinks about where that hand has been—what he’s felt that hand do—how it looks when he does it—and lets his stare drift up to the broken-out skin along Luka’s jaw._

_In the memory he thinks about how Luka is kind of weird-looking—if you look at him through a stranger’s eyes, which is hard for Ivan to do at this point—and unassuming, maybe, at least with his shirt on, and how because of that no one ever guesses what he’s capable of until they see it for themselves. Once they see what he can do, he thinks, offering his Gatorade to Luka and feeling warm when Luka takes a big, hearty sip before handing it back, once they see what he can do…_

_He wonders if he’s having that memory because he’s feeling shades of the same thing about this Luka, this grownup Luka, this ghost of Luka who’s trying to keep Ivan’s mood up now that he too is nothing but a ghost.Who ever could have guessed he had such power, to alter the universe so it changed Ivan’s life forever? This Luka who runs through the meadows with him to stay in pointless shape, this Luka who crawls into their mossy crevice between the tree roots with him every night and begs to be fucked, this Luka who consoles him over and over and over, trying desperately to fix his mistake._

_“It’ll be okay, Ivan.I promise…Someday everyone you love will join you down here, and in the meantime…Let’s just make the best of it…You might be dead, but you’re still living.You’re here with me, Ivan.”_

_Sometimes he can’t even look at him, this Luka who—who—took his life away, but at the same time this is all he’s got.Luka touches him and he wants to say don’t touch me, you killed me, but at the same time, whose touch has ever mattered more than Luka’s?_

_He lets him._

**Author's Note:**

> What did you think? Kudos and comments would bring me back from the dead! 😛


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